


Lipstick

by peskylilcritter



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Nanny Crowley (Good Omens), Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-28 16:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19815697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peskylilcritter/pseuds/peskylilcritter
Summary: Crowley keeps forgetting to take off his lipstick when he takes off the rest of his nanny outfit. Aziraphale finds it inconveniently distracting.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i got super stuck like halfway through writing this, partially bc yo aroace trying to write romance *headddesk* and also bc aroace trying to maybe write sex *HEADDESK* 
> 
> i figured it out after i left it alone for a few days (like everyone told me to do *rolls eyes at self*)
> 
> managed to avoid both writing explicit fic for a couple i never wanna write explicit fic for and also the fade to black that just felt horribly wrong for this specific fic

Crowley shows up to lunch wearing red lipstick. Again.

Aziraphale considers saying something, trying to convince him to take it off because honestly it’s driving him to distraction. Of course, Crowley will almost certainly know why Aziraphale is asking and tease him until the end of the world.

(Which is to say, for another five years. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, after all.)

Oh dear, Crowley’s looking at him expectantly now, and Aziraphale has spent the last five minutes too focused on Crowley’s lips to hear a single word he’s said.

“I’m sorry, my dear, I’m afraid I rather got lost in my own thoughts. Would you repeat that?”

Crowley looks at him like he’s done something strange but doesn’t comment and obligingly repeats his question.

Aziraphale hides his relief and resolves to get over this ridiculous little preoccupation with Crowley’s shiny red lips.

*

The problem, Aziraphale is realizing, is that he doesn’t actually know what, exactly, he’s trying to get over. It’s a mystery to him why he’s so fixated on Crowley wearing lipstick in the first place.

It doesn’t seem to be the lipstick as such. He hardly notices when people are wearing lipstick unless it’s a particularly eye-catching colour and trying it out for himself mostly resulted in a bit of a mess.

He’d think it was Crowley but Aziraphale has never paid this much attention to Crowley’s physical body before.

All in all, the whole thing is ridiculous. Aziraphale is being ridiculous.

*

The next few times he meets Crowley after work (well, after they’ve both left the Dowlings’ house for the day) Aziraphale does his best to focus on the excellent food, the wine, and Crowley’s words.

Only, it backfires a bit. During the second dinner he loses focus entirely, hears only Crowley’s voice and misses the content of his speech so often he ends up having to excuse himself with a flimsy claim to tiredness. Crowley doesn’t mention it.

Between the fourth and fifth dinner, when he’s out on his own because Warlock needs watching overnight, he realizes he’s begun to associate good food with Crowley’s voice.

The next time he sees Crowley, watching young Warlock run around the garden, he suddenly notices how beautiful Crowley’s red hair looks in the sunlight. He manages not to get caught staring and hastily finds a reason to be elsewhere.

Once he’s out of earshot he says, quietly, “Oh, bugger.”

*

Finally, finally, Warlock is almost eleven and Aziraphale is both worried and relieved. The relief intensifies when Crowley shows up to their next meeting with short hair and no lipstick. Perhaps Aziraphale will be able to focus again now.

*

Armageddon, it turns out, is an excellent tool for maintaining intense focus even while surrounded by distractions, and Aziraphale is finally able to put his own ridiculous reactions to Crowley over the past five years out of his mind.

It is therefore a surprise when Crowley and he toast to the world at the Ritz and Aziraphale’s heart does a terribly human little skip in his chest when Crowley smiles at him.

Oh, my.

*

Aziraphale develops an immunity of sorts. He sees Crowley so often these days that the little distractions are easier to ignore, and after a year he’s certain he’s almost over the whole ridiculous business.

And then Crowley shows up at dinner wearing shiny red lipstick again and Aziraphale forgets how to function.

The food helps. With his mouth full Aziraphale doesn’t have to contribute to the conversation with more than nods and hums and the occasional disapproving frown.

Crowley talks and gestures, and Aziraphale eats and watches him.

His red lips moving with the shape of his words, his hands waving around, one with a glass of wine the same colour as his lipstick, his hair all spiky and shining auburn in the low light, his eyes mostly hidden behind his sunglasses but beautiful all the same.

Aziraphale can hardly hear anything but Crowley’s voice and his own heartbeat.

*

Crowley drops him off at the bookshop and Aziraphale carefully fails to take the hint that they might continue the evening over a nice bottle of wine in the backroom.

Instead he watches Crowley drive away and then goes inside to make tea.

He needs to think about this.

Tea. He’ll make tea and sit in the backroom (without Crowley) and think about this. (And if he adds a splash of whiskey to the tea no one need know.)

He’s putting sugar in a second cup, purely out of habit, when the realisation overcomes him.

Oh, goodness, he’s in love.

The teapot hits the floor but Aziraphale doesn’t even notice the hot tea soaking through his shoes.

*

Of course, he’s well familiar with romantic love as a concept, has observed humans in love for as long there have been humans but this is new.

(Crowley, handing him some of the most precious books in his collection, saved from the bomb for no reason but that Aziraphale cares about them. Crowley, spending so much time getting people to see Hamlet just because Aziraphale liked the play. Crowley, offering him a ride, anywhere he liked and it had hurt to say no. Crowley, buying them precious seconds before Satan himself comes to earth, because Aziraphale needed him to. Crowley who has _been there,_ for six millennia.

Perhaps it’s not as new as all that.)

Aziraphale has loved before. He loves Her, certainly, and he loves the other angels – although, it has to be said, he doesn’t much like most of them – he loves all of God’s creatures. He loves the humans, first because She asked, and then for their own sake. He has, on occasion, grown terribly fond of individual humans even with their short lifespan.

What he feels for Crowley is somehow entirely different.

It hurts, a little, with how big it is, how intense. It feels like an explosion in slow motion, like the full force of the Almighty’s attention, beautiful and awful. It feels like death and life, all in one.

The realization feels like the first breath of clean air after an age of drowning.

And now, Aziraphale realizes, it’s something he can have. He can love Crowley now, as much as he likes, can show it and say it with no fear of heavenly retaliation.

“Give you a lift, anywhere you like,” Crowley had said, and Aziraphale can take him up on it now.

He stays there as the two cups of tea grow cold, stays there until dawn, basking in the new knowledge.

*

Crowley takes him out to lunch the next day, wearing a new shade of red lipstick, and Aziraphale says, “That colour suits you.”

Crowley knocks over the glass he was reaching for. He squints at Aziraphale behind his sunglasses. Aziraphale smiles at him, so in love and finally not hiding.

“Uh, thank you?”

Aziraphale makes the stain on the tablecloth disappear and reaches over to set the glass upright.

“Just, you’ve never-“ Crowley hesitates, gesturing vaguely, “Why are you bringing it up now?”

“It occurred to me that I no longer have any reason to censor myself. Heaven no longer cares what I do and who I love, and I no longer care about their disapproval.”

Crowley makes a sound like he’s choking. “Love?” he squeaks.

Aziraphale smiles, knows it’s soft, and reaches for his hand. “My dear, how could it be anything else?”

They sit staring at each other over their joined hands for a long time. Aziraphale has never been this content before.

“Well, then,” Crowley finally says, and clears his throat. His hand tightens on Aziraphale’s. “Just so we’re clear. This isn’t, you know, that ridiculous celestial love. Or you finally admitting we’re friends. Is it?”

“No, my dear. I’m very much in love, and I rather got the impression you felt the same.” He feels a little like he’s falling, like he’s flying.

(In fact, he feels also a little like that one time Crowley brought him ‘special’ brownies. Dizzy and floating and giddy. That evening had been very interesting indeed, and after a few hours and an incredible amount of food, Aziraphale had slept, unusual as that is, for him.)

Crowley pulls his hand closer, yanks so Aziraphale almost falls out of his chair and then he’s kissing him.

All of Aziraphale’s senses are full of Crowley; it’s wonderful, steadying and dizzying all at once, rather like watching the storm from the eye.

Somewhere outside their little bubble someone clears their throat.

Aziraphale pulls back a little but doesn’t let go of Crowley’s hand. A waiter is standing next to them with a look of mild embarrassment which he’s directing at the air above their heads.

He clears his throat again and says, “Will you be needing anything else?”

“I do believe we’re ready for the check, young man,” Aziraphale says.

*

(The lipstick ends up in some very unusual places, later.

Aziraphale, much as he likes it on Crowley’s lips, would be much more annoyed if the process by which it ends up there weren’t so much fun.)


	2. A Small Addendum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had Thoughts about the waiter mentioned briefly at the end of Lipstick, talked to dragonhoardsbookz about him and wrote this for her

Fridays are the only days Patrick actually likes going to work, despite how busy it always gets.

On Fridays, Patrick’s favourite queer couple have dinner at their usual table in his area of the restaurant.

(He likes them because they’re sweet with each other, and because they’re unfailingly polite to him and never once misgender him. Also, their tips helped tremendously with his legal name change and top surgery.

Besides, he was there at what he strongly suspects was their first kiss. He’s _invested_.)

Today one of the cooks is out sick and so are two of the other waiters so everyone is stressed beyond belief, and when the blond one orders Patrick interrupts him without thinking, “No, don’t order that today. Won’t be any good.”

The one in the sunglasses raises his eyebrows while his boyfriend stares at Patrick.

He clears his throat and adds, “One of the cooks is out sick, sir, and he’s the only one who can get that dish right. Sorry, sir.”

The blond one smiles at him. “Not to worry, young man. Just give me a moment to choose something else.”

Patrick stands there awkwardly while he goes through the menu again. The boyfriend is smiling too, now, fondly indulgent. Patrick pretends not to notice.

He does order eventually. Patrick passes it on and makes sure to note that the cook should be generous with the sauce and the side dish. The one in the sunglasses never orders food for himself but Patrick has noticed, over the years, that he often helps himself to bits of his boyfriend’s meal.

*

He works around their table for the rest of the evening, stopping by every now and then to make sure they don’t run out of wine.

He gets called miss five times, yelled at once, and three tables stiff him on tips.

Still, when he watches his favourite couple leave hand in hand later, he thinks it was a pretty good evening.


End file.
